Matthew Fox on Creation Spirituality
CS is about recovering nature and all of creation as sacred again. It reaches back to the earliest humans who were struck with the awe of their existence in the midst of the awe of nature and it is found in the earliest writer of the Hebrew Bible (“J” source) and in the Wisdom literature of the Bible which scholars all agree was the primary influence on the historical Jesus as were the prophets who also speak often out of a CS context and message. CS holds up the archetype of the Cosmic Christ (or Buddha Nature or Image of God) as a symbol of the sacredness of all things, micro and macro. The universe itself is the ultimate sacrament therefore.
CS is found among indigenous peoples everywhere–Aboriginal teacher and activist Eddie Kneebone said that Creation Spirituality strikes him as being parallel to the “Dreamtime” of his people. Lakota teacher Buck Ghosthorse once said to me: “Do you want to know how sacred water is? Go without it for three days and nights.”
The eco collapse occurring around the world is forcing many to fast from clean water or clean air, from food too. Can this collapse awaken us to act against climate change before it is too late? CS supports eco-activists and others seeking social, racial, gender and environmental justice. It is a spirituality of passion and compassion, of moral outrage and unleashing of creativity and hope. It is the way of many mystic/prophets or contemplative activists over the centuries including but not limited to Hildegard of Bingen, Francis of Assisi, Thomas Aquinas, Meister Eckhart, Mechtild of Magdeburg, Julian of Norwich, Nicolas of Cusa, Thomas Merton, Dorothee Soelle, Howard Thurman, and many more.
CS is in active dialog with scientists about the new cosmology and much more. Thomas Berry writes: “An absence of a sense of the sacred is the basic flaw in many of our efforts at ecologically or environmentally adjusting our human presence to the natural world. It has been said, ‘We will not save what we do not love.’ It is also true that we will neither love nor save what we do not experience as sacred….Eventually only our sense of the sacred will save us.”*
*Thomas Berry, “Foreward,” in Kathleen Deignan, ed., Thomas Merton Writings on Nature: When the Trees Say Nothing (Notre Dame, IN: Sorin Books, 2003), 18f.
Creation Spirituality in Contrast to the Dominant Religious Paradigm (Fall/Redemption Religion)
Fall/Redemption | Creation Spirituality |
Begins with sin | Begins with Dabhar, God’s Creative energy |
Emphasizes original sin | Emphasizes original blessing |
Faith is “thinking with assent” (Augustine) | Faith is trust |
Patriarchal | Feminist and Gender balanced |
Ascetic | Aesthetic |
Mortification of body | Discipline toward birthing |
Control of passions | Ecstasy, Eros, celebration of Passion |
Virtue lies in the will (Augustinians) | Virtue lies in the passions (Aquinas) |
Passion is a curse | Passion is a blessing |
God as Father | God as Mother, God as Child, as well as Father |
Suffering is wages for sin | Suffering is birth pains of universe—all beings suffer |
Death is wages for sin | Death is a natural event, a prelude to recycling and rebirth |
Introspective in its psychology | Cosmic (connecting psyche to cosmos) in its psychology |
Emphasizes introvert meditation | Emphasizes art as meditation (also known as extrovert meditation) |
Science is unimportant | Science, by teaching us about Nature, teaches us about the Creator |
Dualistic (either/or) | Dialectical (both/and) |
Spirit is in opposition to matter | Spirit and matter form a “wonderful communion” (Aquinas) |
“Spirit is whatever is not matter” (Augustine) | Spirit is the ‘elan” in everything (Aquinas) |
Suspicious of the body and violent in its body/soul imagery: “Soul makes war with the body” (Augustine) | Welcoming of body and gentle in its body/soul imagery: “soul loves the body” (Eckhart) |
“Humility is to despise yourself” (Tanquerry) | Humility is to befriend one’s earthiness (humus). “Holy people draw to themselves all that is earthy.” (Hildegard) |
Be in control | Letting go—ecstasy, breakthrough |
Pessimistic | Hopeful |
Climbing Jacob’s Ladder | Dancing Sara’s Circle |
Elitist | For the many, democratic |
No Cosmic Christ | Cosmic Christ |
Emphasis on Jesus as Son of God but not Jesus as prophet | Emphasis on Jesus as prophet, artist, parable-teller, wisdom figure and Son of God who calls others to their divinity |
Personal salvation | Salvation, healing and divinizing of people, the earth and the cosmos (theosis) |
Build up church | Build up Kingdom/Queendom |
Kingdom = church | Kingdom = cosmos, creation |
Human as sinner | Human as royal person who can choose to create or destroy |
Time is toward the past (lost perfection) or future (heaven): unrealized eschatology | Time is now and making the future (heaven) begin to happen now: realized eschatology |
Eternal life is after death | Eternal life is now |
Contemplation is goal of spirituality | Compassion, justice, and celebration are goals of spirituality |
A spirituality of the powerful | A spirituality of the powerless, the anawim (those without a voice) |
Emphasizes the cross | Considers the cross as significant for the Via Negativa, but also emphasizes the Creation, Resurrection and coming of the Spirit in co-creation |
Emphasizes the cross | Considers the cross as significant for the Via Negativa, but also emphasizes the Creation, Resurrection and coming of the Spirit in co-creation |
Tends toward christolotry and Docetism with an underdeveloped theology of the Creator and the Holy Spirit | Trinitarian in full sense of celebrating a Creator God, a prophetic Son of God, and the Holy Spirit of divine transformation |
Emphasizes obedience | Emphasizes creativity |
Tends to abstractions | Sensual |
Righteousness | Justice |
Duty | Beauty |
Guilt, shame and redemption | Thanks and praise |
Purity from world | Hospitality to all beings |
Apolitical, i.e. supportive of status quo | Prophetic, i.e. critical of status quo and its ideologies |
Humanity is sinful | Humanity is divine yet capable of demonic and sinful choices |
Faith is in intellect | Faith is in imagination |
Suspicious of the artist | Welcomes the artist since all are called to be co-creators with God |
Theistic | Panentheistic |
My religion is the only way to God | Deep Ecumenism |